Renovating with a Toddler: Preparation

Before I knew I was pregnant, my husband and I bought a fixer upper. It needed a lot of work (and I mean a lot!). There were basketball sized holes in the walls, all the doors had been kicked in, the once white carpet was shades of brown and green, and leaks left unchecked under sinks left us with rotten cabinets. Every room needed paint, floors, and basic repairs.

The plan was for me to renovate the house and then go back to work a couple months later. Then we found out I was pregnant, and shorlty after I was put on bed rest until the baby was born. It was a rough pregnancy made rougher by unpainted walls and a lack of floors.

Slowly, we were able to get the house renovated. My husband started with the paint and floors with a goal to have floors from our room to the baby’s room finished before she came home. My daughter’s entire life has been spent in a reno-zone, but we are near the end now.

The baby is 16 months old. And it is finally (finally!) time to do the kitchen.

This is the second house we have renovated. And the kitchen is far from the first project we have done in this house with a small baby. So I decided to do a short, 2-3 part series on how to manage a medium sized renovation project with a little one in tow.

Step 1: Be Prepared

Renovations are hard enough, so make life easier by putting a good amount of time into a plan. The more involved a renovation, the more time and energy you need to spend planning.

My recommendation is to spend at least a month planning every project. Why a month? because during that month you will be doing more than just talking through what you want to do. Gather materials, do extensive research into parts of the renovation you are unsure about, make detailed lists and break down what needs to be done when.

Know how long each aspect of the renovation should take so you know if you are behind or not and develop contingency plans for if you do fall behind.

If you can get everything gathered and set up well before you start the project, then you can take full advantage of the next step.

Step 2: Work your timeline

If you know well in advance exactly what needs to be done for a project and how long it is going to take, then you can be an opportunist on when the project occurs.

We often plan our big projects (like kitchens) a year or more in advance. Then over the course of the year, we gather each material we need when they are on sale. For example, we grabbed our new countertops when a granite yard near us closed. $800 for granite is much better than the $4000 we were originally quoted. We could only score that deal by knowing what we wanted and keeping an eye out for it.

But deals aren’t the only thing you should be an opportunist about. As a parent (and a human being), time is your most valuable resource. Working on a big project is best done when there are people available to help you watch the baby and when you can easily take time off of work.

We are starting this kitchen project right now because the 3 day weekend coming up happens to correspond with a Friday my husband naturally has off. He was able to take 3 days off of work to create a stretch of 9 days off when we can work on the kitchen. We can finish the kitchen in 9 days, which works out perfectly.

Step 3: Prepare for a rough week

Renovating any part of your home is an inconvienence, but high use areas like kitchens are even worse. Once you know when you are doing the work and what the plan for the renovation is, take steps to make the inconvienece as easy as possible.

If you are doing a kitchen, prepare easy meals ahead of time since you may not be able to cook. Doing the play room? Move your routine with the little one into another room about a week before you start so they won’t be tempted to intrude. Take a moment to really think “what would make this situation easier” and then do what you can to mitigate the upheaval to your family’s routine.

You should also try for some extra sleep. Finishing a project on time lends itself to long nights and new baby levels of sleep deprivation.

Step 4: Get Help

It is really hard to get any work done when the baby is there trying to get into things. Your best bet, if you want to move quickly, is to enlist someone to watch the baby. Maybe grandma can come over, or you can work while the day care has the baby. Whatever your strategy, another set of hands to make sure the little one is cared for while you care for the house is invaluable.

Step 5: Work in sections

Try to work in sections that can end a day with minimum usability.

What does this mean? Well, for a kitchen, you can spend a couple of days working on the plywood that will ultimately go under the counter. If it takes you a month to paint the upper cabinets, no big deal. It is just an eyesore. But can you survive a night with a toddler and no lower cabinet doors? Yeah, that one is hard.

So divide up your work so you don’t have to survive a night with an un-baby-proofed kitchen. Only pull as many doors off the lowers as you can paint and re-install over the course of the day. Be sure to take everything out of the cabinets the baby can reach while you do. And you might as well declutter it all while you are at it.

Step 6: Plan to distract.

At times, even your best laid plans will fail you. The baby will wind up in your work space while you are doing something akward (like moving countertops, or installing a sink). It is truly unavoidable.

Remember, the baby just wants to see what you are doing and help you do it. They want to be involved. They want to help. So give them something to do that feels like helping. Give them their toy hammer so they can bang on things with you. Have them hold a safe-ish tool for you, like a flashlight or an unopened silicone tube. Or have them help you “clean” an area you are not working on.

Finally: Just start

Once you have thought through anything that could possibly happen, and you have all your ducks in a row. Just bite the bullet and get to it. The sooner you start and push through the renovation, the sooner you will be done.

Next week I will give you a break down of how the kitchen reno actually went and how far we were able to get. We plan to start on Saturday and be finished as soon as possible. I think we might be able to finish in 5 days. We plan on installing a new sink, painting all the cabinets, decluttering the cabinets, and replacing the countertops. A lot of work, made harder by the decade of grease that has gotten under the cabinet finishes and the tile countertops, but we will get it done.

Do you have a renovation planned? How do you feel about it and what are you going to do? Let me know in the comments below.

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